As digital content continues to proliferate, management of digital assets becomes an increasingly difficult challenge. The term “content” is broadly defined herein and may include audio, video, images, electronic data, biometric information, graphics and designs, electronic documents, copyrighted materials, software, multimedia content, etc., etc. Sometimes we interchangeably use the term “media” instead of content in this document. Enhancements in computer networking and database technology allow companies to manage large content collections and to make the content available to third parties. While network communication provides a powerful tool to enable a database manager to share content with others, it makes it more difficult to control and track how the content is being used.
For example, some companies maintain extensive content databases to promote their products. Customers or service providers such as advertising and marketing firms can access this content remotely via an internet, extranet, web site, intranet, LAN, WAN, wireless network or file transfer transactions. Although computer networking telecommunication technology facilitates access, it makes it difficult to ensure that customers and services providers are getting the latest content, and that they are getting accurate and helpful information relating to the content.
There is a need to enable digital rights management systems to reliably link content with additional, related data—including related content. The terms “link” and “linking” are defined broadly herein to include associating, pointing to, facilitating the access of, linking, connecting or connecting to, revealing an storage address of, and/or facilitating database interrogation, etc. There is also a need for a digital rights management system to reliably link content with related usage billing information. One way to associate content with information about the content is to place the information in a file header or footer. This approach is not terribly attractive because the added information often does not survive file format changes, conversion to the analog domain, and is susceptible to being stripped away, etc. We believe that an improved approach to associate content with related data is to steganographically hide identifying information within the content. One example of steganography is digital watermarking.
Digital watermarking is the science of encoding physical and electronic objects with plural-bit digital data, in such a manner that the data is essentially hidden from human perception, yet can be recovered by computer analysis. Most commonly, digital watermarking is applied to media such as images, audio signals, and video signals. However, it may also be applied to other types of data, including documents (e.g., through line, word or character shifting), software, multi-dimensional graphics models, and surface textures of objects. In physical objects, the data may be encoded in the form of surface texturing, or printing. Such marking can be detected from optical scan data, e.g., from a scanner, optical reader, input device, digital camera, or web cam. In electronic media (e.g., digital audio or imagery—including video), the data may be encoded as slight variations in sample values. Or if the media is represented in a so-called orthogonal domain (also termed “non-perceptual,” e.g., MPEG, DCT, wavelet, etc.), the data may be encoded as slight variations in quantization values or levels. The assignee's U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,862,260 and 6,122,403, and U.S. application Ser. No. 09/503,881, filed Feb. 14, 2000, are illustrative of certain digital watermarking technologies. Each of these U.S. patent documents is herein incorporated by reference. A great many other approaches are familiar to those skilled in the art. The artisan is presumed to be familiar with the full range of literature about steganography, data hiding and digital watermarking.
Digital watermarking systems typically have two primary components: an encoder that embeds the watermark in a host media signal, and a decoder that detects and reads the embedded watermark from a signal suspected of containing a watermark (e.g., a suspect signal). The encoder embeds a watermark by altering the host media signal. For example, the encoder (or embedder) component embeds a watermark by altering data samples of the media content in the spatial, temporal or some other transform domain (e.g., Fourier, Discrete Cosine, Wavelet Transform domains). The decoder component analyzes a suspect signal to detect whether a watermark is present. In applications where the watermark encodes information, the decoder extracts this information from the detected watermark.
The analysis of the detected data can be accomplished in various known ways. Presently, most steganographic decoding relies on general-purpose microprocessors that are programmed by suitable software instructions to perform the necessary analysis. Other arrangements, such as using dedicated hardware, reprogrammable gate arrays, or other techniques, can of course be used.
According to one aspect of our invention, a digital watermarking system includes (or communicates with) a secondary component—a database. Such a database preferably includes data related to content. The related data may include, e.g., content owner or copyright information, metadata, usage rights, enhanced or interactive content, and billing information, etc. This related data is preferably organized or linked according to respective content identifiers. For example, if the content includes a song and the related data includes usage rules, then the usage rules can be associated with the song via a content identifier that is unique to the song or to a class of related songs. The database can be stored locally, remotely, or both. The database can also be distributed, with different databases stored in different networks or locations, such as a complete central and mirrored database and local databases including only subsets of the related data on a local computer. Of course our usage of the term database throughout this document is broad enough to include software-based databases, data structures, data records, etc., etc.
User-friendly digital rights management systems are preferred in our evolving digital and connected world. Many digital rights management systems fail because they focus solely on the content owner's security desires and not on consumer usage. As such, these rights management systems are not acceptable to consumers. A historical example is taken from the software industry in the 1980's, when that industry abandoned copy protection. We have solved some of the failing associated with traditional digital rights management systems. Our inventive user-friendly digital rights management system provides transparent usage models to consumers while protecting the content. In one implementation, a user-friendly rights management system enables consumers to easily purchase content that they want to play or use, as opposed to stopping consumers from using the content. One benefit of our inventive system is that it is now easier for a mass market to purchase content, rather than use illegitimately obtained content.
In one embodiment of the present invention, a digital watermark embedded within a content item is used to convey a content identifier(s). In a second embodiment, file headers associated with a content item include a content identifier(s). In still another embodiment, both digital watermarks and file headers are used to carry content identifiers. Content identifiers can be linked to related data, such as “usage rights” (or “usage rules”) common in some digital rights management (DRM) systems. (The artisan is presumed familiar with the many DRM systems, a few of which are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,765,152, 5,410,598, 5,943,422, 6,363,488 and 6,330,670. Of course there are many other DRM systems and containers that can be enhanced by the present invention.). These rules typically define the scope of permissible content use, e.g., such as regulating printing, viewing, copying, altering, distributing, selling, etc. Digital watermarks—including a content identifier—can be used for content tracking and data management. In another embodiment, digital watermarks are used in connection with DRM content containers. Another aspect of the invention is a method of performing digital asset management of media content. In even another embodiment the copy protection state (also known as copy control information including copy freely, copy no more, copy never, and/or copy once) can be overridden through linking the identifier to usage rules, if the usage rules allow copy protection information to be overridden, e.g., to enable the sale or distribution of the content. This enables the content owners to be properly paid, and users to share content, instead of merely prohibiting use of the content.
One aspect of the present invention provides content owners with copy protection security and royalty tracking, and end-users with an easy-to-use system that improves current content distribution methods, such as CD, DVD and VHS. A combination of watermarking and DRM techniques can be employed, where a watermark allows content to leave and be found outside an associated DRM package without harming the security of the system. The watermark identification can link the content to the usage rules, and, optionally, the usage rules can dictate whether the content should be re-packaged into the DRM package if found outside of it. This means that content found outside the DRM package can be purchased and used, as well as re-secured, as opposed to that content being considered illegal and perhaps destroyed. This inventive feature increases the revenue generated from the content. A DRM package is broadly defined and may include an encryption-based format, or a container in which content is securely maintained, etc. Artisans know many DRM packaging techniques, which may be suitably interchanged with the packaging aspect of the present invention. DRM systems help publishers or content owners prevent unauthorized copying, replication, usage or distribution of their software products, either via CD-ROM, via the Internet, transfer, etc. Other DRM systems incorporate encryption, digital signature and license manager technologies, and enable authentication from either a disc, online database, or from a PC hard drive. These technologies can be applied to secure CD-ROM or computer executable files, and to maintain desired control over the distribution of content during its life cycle. A DRM package that allows licensing and reporting provides an ideal rights management system for audio, video and images.
Still another aspect of the present invention is to provide an efficient distribution chain based on identified content, particularly when combined with our inventive techniques. Yet another aspect of the present invention is linking together databases that are stored and protected by a network of the database owner, and enabling those databases to function as one database via a central router and database.
Further features, advantages and benefits will become apparent with reference to the following detailed description and drawings.